Moscow Slams US For Increasingly 'Dangerous' Behavior Amid New Venezuela, Cuba Sanctions

Moscow is concerned about the United States' recent sanctions and statements toward Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American countries, warning that such an increasingly "bellicose" behavior is dangerous and may lead to the "gravest consequences," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2019) Moscow is concerned about the United States' recent sanctions and statements toward Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American countries, warning that such an increasingly "bellicose" behavior is dangerous and may lead to the "gravest consequences," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the United States imposed sanctions on Venezuela's Central Bank. US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that the move should send a strong warning to external actors, including Russia, against deploying military assets to Venezuela to support Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The same day, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the United States would allow its citizens to sue foreign companies that benefit from their properties seized by Cuba after Fidel Castro came to power there. The Treasury, in turn, rolled out new sanctions against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's son and the Nicaraguan bank Banco Corporativo (BanCorp) which is owned by Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA.

"We note with alarm that Washington continues throwing threats against those Latin American countries that it does not like.

The rhetoric of US officials toward Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua are getting more bellicose," Zakharova said at a briefing.

In particular, the spokeswoman slammed Bolton, who, in his Wednesday speech, compared the United States' failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 an "undisguised act of aggression against a sovereign state," according to Zakharova to the 1944 Normandy landings.

According to the diplomat, there is an impression that Washington "seeks to turn the clock back" and "set Washington back not just 50-60 years, but some 200 years" as Bolton publicly announced that the Monroe Doctrine an 1820s US policy of opposing foreign intrusions in the Western Hemisphere was alive.

"The United States is increasingly ignoring modern international law. It openly violates the UN Charter. Its behavior on the world stage is becoming more aggressive and dangerous. The conviction of their own exceptionalism is increasingly evident in their sense of permissiveness," she noted.

The spokeswoman noted that history taught us that such a push for world hegemony could lead to "the gravest consequences."